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from the ought-to-be-enough-for-anybody dept.
Jason Plautz writes at The Atlantic that the more the world's population rises, the greater the strain on dwindling resources and the greater the impact on the environment. "And yet the climate-change benefits of family planning have been largely absent from any climate-change or family-planning policy discussions," says Jason Bremner of the Population Reference Bureau. Even as the population passes 7.2 billion and is projected by the United Nations to reach 10.9 billion by the end of the century, policymakers have been unable—or unwilling—to discuss population in tandem with climate change. Why? Because "talking about population control requires walking a tightrope." writes Plautz. "It can all too easily sound like a developed world leader telling people in the developing world that they should stop having children—especially because much of the population boom is coming from regions like sub-Saharan Africa." Just look at what happened to Hillary Clinton in 2009, when as secretary of State she acknowledged the overpopulation issue during a discussion with Indian environment minister Jairam Ramesh. Clinton praised another panelist for noting "that it's rather odd to talk about climate change and what we must do to stop and prevent the ill effects without talking about population and family planning."
A 2010 study looked at the link between policies that help women plan pregnancies and family size and global emissions. The researchers predicted that lower population growth could provide benefits equivalent to between 16 and 29 percent of the emissions reduction needed to avoid a 2 degrees Celsius warming by 2050, the warning line set by international scientists. But the benefits also come through easing the reduced resources that could result from climate change. The U.N. IPCC report notes the potential for climate-related food shortages, with fish catches falling anywhere from 40 to 60 percent and wheat and maize taking a hit, as well as extreme droughts. With resources already stretched in some areas, the IPCC laid out the potential for famine, water shortages and pestilence. Still, the link remains a "very sensitive topic," says Karen Hardee, "At the global policy level you can't touch population … but what's been heartening is that over the last few years it's not just us, but people from the countries themselves talking about this."
(Score: 3, Interesting) by mojo chan on Sunday November 02 2014, @12:11PM
Bangladesh has managed to lower its fertility rate from a high of 7 to around 2.2 now: https://www.google.co.uk/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=sp_dyn_tfrt_in&idim=country:BGD:IND:PAK&hl=en&dl=en [google.co.uk]
They did that through education. According to this [worldbank.org] Bangladeshi are only using around 260kWh/year/person, compared to around 13,250kWh/year/person in the US. Even relatively efficient countries are around the 5-8000kWh/year mark. So, energy consumption is not linked to the birth rate, education is.
Since the 60s there have been multiple programmes in Bangladesh educating people about contraception and the benefits of having a small family. Women have been empowered to refuse their husband's wishes to have more children, and having a small but well cared for and educated family has become the model. Bangladesh is still very poor, but the low fertility rate is helping to change that. India has realized the same thing and made major progress.
As for world population, we are nearly at the point where the number of children in the world is levelling off. The actual percentage of the population that is under 18 has been falling since the 60s, and the absolute number will level off around the 2 billion mark. By the end of the century world population will be stable around the 10 billion mark. Sounds like a lot, but most of the growth will be in Africa and that continent can cope if it is developed. We can't be complacent, we need to make sure development happens with sustainable farming and clean energy, but fortunately Africa is quite well suited to those two things. It's a challenge, but not the end of the world.
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